Our Halloween party just hit its 19^th year. It’s almost all grown up and ready to move into our basement… oh wait, that already happened. Since we’ve thrown this shindig for nearly two decades, Jason and I have the pattern down. We know when to start dragging out our masses of decorations, and we also know we will have to use a steam vacuum on at least a few spots of carpet afterward. Yet, like any loony endeavor, this bash still possesses flashes of the unexpected. This year, we didn’t anticipate the overwhelming amount of time it would take to conjure magical party favors, crafts, and catering, a miscalculation that resulted in ocular convulsions and persistent ascents. Allow me to share the twinge-worthy details.

We opted to do a Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts theme this year. Although we did a Harry Potter motif last year, it was kind of a last-minute decision. This time, we made it a mid-minute decision and went all in. I loved the continuity the theme provided, but that connection did cost a spell. Being a fan of the wizarding world, I got a little too absorbed in the enchantment I could summon through details from Harry’s universe.

Custom decorations, like a handmade Dementor, were just the beginning of the magical madness. I assembled 79 party favors of six different varieties. Everything from wands to fantastic creatures was included in these charmed takeaways. In the end, only three of the 79 didn’t go home with a witch or wizard. As if that mound of mystical trinkets wasn’t enough, I also conjured, as a bonus, personalized gifts for the “VIP” children that have consistently come to our bash for years.

There were nine different crafts available to attendees this year, most of them Harry Potter related. Ingredients for everything from Deathly-Hallows house bracelets, mini spell books, wand boxes, and potion journals were offered for the making. Finding templates for these crafts, getting the necessary supplies and prints, and fashioning examples required a heft of effort and time. Drat you Harry Potter for having so many darling DIYs!

Just how crazy was I with crafts and favors this year? Well, on Etsy alone, one of my favorite sites for unique handmade pieces, I bought 52 different types of items from 30 distinct sellers. As in, the Harry Potter mask I purchased three dozen of was just one of those 52 items. The total number of objects procured was well into the hundreds. And then, there was all that stuff that came from Oriental Trading… someone Imperio me!

In an atypical bout of organization, Jason created an Excel document to manage party tasks this year. It had 78 to-dos on it, but it didn’t cover everything. Despite Jason’s uncharacteristic coordination, we got a little behind on necessary assignments in the days leading up to the event, more so than any other year in the recent past. This can mostly be blamed on my self-inflicted craft and favor overload. Seriously, why are there so many possible Potter projects out there? According to my Fitbit, I climbed 130 flights of stairs in the 48 hours before our party. Was I hiking a mountain? No, I was decorating and setting up magical merriment. Somewhere in those 130 flights, my right eyelid started twitching. By the day prior to our party, that spasm became constant. Give me a break eye! Tina Goldstein’s eyes don’t twitch! That’s not part of the costume!

Yes, Jason and I dressed to match the motif this year. Jason made a terrific Newt Scamander, dare I say fantastic? He got his hair cut and curled so his tresses would look their bestest. Not only did he impeccably look the part, but he also acted the part, “forgetting” his suitcase frequently for others to find. Being Tina was somehow appropriate for me. I’m uptight but still likeable, right? Although Jason and I don’t include ourselves in the costume contest at our shindig, Jason won first place at his office’s costume competition.

How did the party itself go? We had 90 attendees this year, a record we weren’t trying to hit. How did 90 bodies fit inside our modest home? I have no idea. There were some magical moments that night. I heard a little kid excitedly tell another kid, “They have a swamp! Come see the swamp.” I saw newcomers eagerly taking pictures of decorations. I laughed at a group of tweens acting terribly tough as they tried to take down the piñata. One of my nieces asked me, “How long did it take you to do this? It seems like it would take a really long time.” She was right, and I appreciated the appreciation. It’s the little moments like these that justify the immense effort involved.

Once again, our Halloween get-together was a beast. Many thanks to the friends and family members that selflessly helped us turn it into a fantastic beast and to the Halloween enthusiasts that joined us. Incidentally, my eye stopped twitching after about two weeks, and Jason hasn’t curled his locks in a couple months.

It has been months since our halls boomed with the incantations of witches, but the late arrival of a post on the subject is fitting because Jason and I were slower eradicating Halloween this year than ever before. Usually, our crows and maggots are stored away prior to Christmas, but it’s February, and they were only just barely caged. Yes, this year, much more than others, our party experienced some lags.

Knowing we would be in Europe for half of October, Jason and I wisely started our party preparations extra early. Then, in a momentarily lapse into idiocy, we decided to transform our basement into a wizarding world, a process that required new props and the imaginative rethinking of space. Why this year of all years? Floating candles don’t just float themselves into existence. (Do I need to roll for a sanity check?) Thankfully, we had some transformation help. Over the years, decorating for our event has almost become an event in of itself. On an evening or Saturday afternoon, friends gather and catch up over pizza and creepy scene setters. The conversations are lively, and the assistance is enlivening. This year, Adam even popped in from Washington to put up a few cobwebs; bedecking our spooky halls is that thrilling. Thanks Lee, Drew, Simone, Jacob, Rowley, Adam, and Keith for lending us some of your mystical brainpower and pushpin skills!

Beyond the hefty task of decorating, fashioning the favors for our party always represent a different type of challenge. Trying to guess the correct combination of adult, teenager, and kid gifts needed is difficult. So, this year, Jason and I opted to give our guests plenty of options from which to pick what they favored, with some appealing to multiple age groups. We assembled 36 kid bags, 12 wizard wands, 24 gothic toiletries, and 20 tween grabs.

Jason and I arrived home from Europe only days before our get-together. We had pretty severe jet lag the night of our party, so we almost nodded off while tallying the costume contest votes. It’s kind of comical having 85 guests in your house while you can barely stay awake.

Not everything was more complicated this year though. Dinky Donuts took some of the common headaches out of catering for us. Their desserts were hot, fresh, and yummy. Better yet, this food truck arrived on time and was ready to handle orders precisely when anticipated. Yeah! That’s a first for our food-truck luck.

Cleaning up the piles of cups and sticky crumbs after our shindig also went much quicker than normal thanks to some kind helpers. Benson, Rowley, Milo, Drew, and Simone all pitched in. You know you’ve mastered the universe when He-Man vacuums your house for you.

Throwing our annual Halloween party is always exhausting, throwing it while experiencing jet lag was almost laughable. A big thank you to the assistants that graciously lent a hand or wand; you are more enchanting than a Scourgify spell. And a thank you to our friends and family that have made this shindig a fall ritual; it wouldn’t be a 17-year-and-still-running tradition without you.